In the matter of carpets
from Caucasia there is a significant bridge book, Carpet Production
of the Transcaucasus, Scientific Research Institute, Caucasus
Academy of Science, Tiflis, 1932, by M. D. Isaev, based on statistical
and economic surveys. This book underlies the various publications
of Kerimov, et. al., which run from the 1950's through the 1980's,
and is the link between these latter day writings and the various
reports concerning craft industry of the pre-revolutionary period.

They all are,
unsurprisingly, consistent.

Isaev contains
a great deal of information - too much - on carpet-making in the
early Soviet period, heavily skewed to matters economic: numbers
of workers, location of workers, weekly hours, income, and the like.
While carpet cooperatives had begun in the mid-twenties and were
developing in the period 1927 - 28, the activity was still predominately
one of the villages and undertaken at home rather than in artels.
The dominant production area, as historically was the case, was
Azerbaijan (70%) followed by Armenia and Georgia (15% each). Much
of this information is boring and of no interest to any but conscientious
students; the message, however, is that after the collapse during
the first world war and the ensuing civil war period, the activity
revived, to considerable extent unchanged, with the assistance of
Soviet apparatus which acted in support of craft industry exactly
as did its imperial predecessors.

The materials
herein are the guts of the Isaev book. First, the long geographic
typology of weaving villages; second a set of some of the artist
renditions of carpet patterns being furnished weavers. On this second
matter, it may be useful to observe field patterns (the same as
the earlier period) and design of border envelopes (different).
A good approach might be to disregard the plethora of villages,
while noting they are quite real, and that it is their numbers not
their names, which is significant, for example, the 33 identified
in Kuba district which squares with the 28 weaving villages cited
in the kustar' survey of 1901. It is, rather, areas and their
subdivisions which are meaningful.

One can read
for details - the appearance of the misnomer, Marazali, (for Maraza)
and the use of Gabistan as an area term. What is important, however,
is the identification of Armenian weaving villages in Shirvan, and,
the conversion under government sponsorship of the technics of pile
rug construction in western Azerbaijan and in Armenia from traditional
coarse weave to the finer more supple weave of eastern Azerbaijan,
making it possible to identify examples of this type. (The Textile
Museum has a couple of the latter, but doesn't know it.)

Now, as for
the typology as it appears in Isaev. The transliteration sticks
with the Russian. For "dzh" substitute "j";
the rest of it aligns fairly well with the underlying place name,
typically Azeri. K's and g's occasionally get transposed, as do
b's and p's. Only one or two government political jurisdictional
terms appear; the minor ones, such as police districts, are translated
as "area" and its synonyms. "Vicinity", however,
is preserved; "center" is used for a word which literally
means "node" or cluster of small villages, commonly used
in western Azerbaijan and Armenia. Parens appear in the text; brackets
are editorial inserts.

a. Gabistan
in the villages: Chukhanly, Marazaly, Siundi, Navur, Uduly, Pashaly,
Shorbakhcha;
b. Akhsuin - all of the hilly part of Shirvan area in the villages:
Bidzhov, Geoglyar, Lengebiuz;
c. Kiurdamir - all of the lower part of Shirvan district in the
villages: Kiurdamir, Ismaily, Sorsor, Shil'yan, Mollakend, Pirasanny,
Padar;
d. Sal'yano-Adzhikabul' in the villages: Khila, Karbagly, Khaladzh,
Chalogly, Dzhagirly, Kelany

In the past
these types were regarded as the production of Zangezur, Daralagez
and Bazargechara (Armeniya), which nowadays were reorganized with
other principal carpet-making sub-areas of Armenia, switching to
the making of thinner and lower pile output type of Kuba and Shirvan.

The production
of Armenia reorganized itself from thick yarns and high pile, of
the Kazak family, into a manufacture of thin yarns, with low clipping,
the Kuba, Shirvan, Baku type. Here are included the following subareas:

a. Lori in
the villages: Ardvi, Bert, Ledzhan, Agarak;
b. Bambaki in the villages: Shokh, Uzunlyar, Akhpat, Dseg;
c. Idzhevano-Shamshadin: Idzhvan ((Karavansarai) and the villages
Verkhnii Agdan, Khashtarak, Sevkar, Dzharkhech, Tauzkala, Ardanysh,
Dzhil, Agbulakh, and also the villages in the direction of Karakoin
gorge (Chalkend, Gel'kend);
d. Zangezur, in the villages: Dyg, Khdozoresk, Goris city (Gerinsin
center), next to a village along the river Okhchi-chai (Kafan center)
and the hamlet Brnagod (Sisian center);
e. Daralag, Basargechar and New Leninikan center, not including
other subareas;
f. kurdish carpets of Armenia - the Argats mountain area (Alagez)

(Note: According
to production technique dzhedzhims do not appear in carpet-making;
they more properly are attributed to ordinary fabric-making.)

a. Figured,
out of silk kamiyan - in Zardobsk settlements of Shirvan okrug and
in the villages of Lembaran, Karabakh okrug
b. plain - from silk saya -- primarily in the same areas
c. woolens - Kazak, Karabakh, Armenia
d. cottons - are made, primarily, by kustar'cooperatives in Erivan
and Tiflis.

From the Isaev
typology it is clear that the craft industry apparatus was not much
interested in non-pile weaving, about 10% of the pre-revolutionary
product.

Here follows
the artist renditions of approved designs of which there were either
50 or 70 (number not yet clear). It is a good idea to think the
field pattern was traditional for the cited village, but not safe
to assume it was made only there. Printed in Tiflis, 1n 1932, the
colors are very likely not to be true. The term gyaba refers to
a rug, largish and intermediate between scatter rugs and hali.

One of the foregoing details is worth noting, that having to do
with the
thick yarn, high pile category and one of its categories, Shusha
City.
The entry "Carpet from Shusha City" discusses a rug of
quite different
style -- large, specially commissioned, and not at all the Karabagh
country type. These carpets can be documented from the late 19th
century into the pre-war 20th. That they had disappeared by the
time
Isaev summed things up in 1930 can readily be seen, and the cause,
World
War I and ensuing civil war in Caucasia, is easily deduced. That
things
change over time is an iron law, and it is a fatal error to take
the
circumstance of any given point and to project it back into history.
For example, Cecil Edwards knew an enormous amount about early 20th
century weaving in Hamadan, but blundered when he asserted that
prior to
then there had been no rug-making there, definitely not the case.